12800 is the next target for the dow everyone is speaking of, at that point I will let go 1-2 more longs and add some more inverse funds, most likely TWM, SMN, DUG, EEV. However I think this is a short term overbought market now. The bull market is not back and wont be for quite sometime, there is nothing great in the economy now that is going to help the market back to 14k and beying....
IWM is now 0.30 down from my last short. I did not like the market staying too long at the top of today. So, I just took half of my position off. Therefore, no matter what happens today, the result will be positive. I will give room for the second half of my position (shorted at $70.12). I also took 10 pip profits off on 50% of my position on EUR/JPY. So overall a positive day. We will see how positive it will be for the rest of the day. I am now going to do other work (none trading work). I might check the forum from time to time. Good luck everyone. PS: Empree: I would have scalped it on the short side if I were you. But since you are making money, who cares which side you go. What matter is that you make dollars.
How are you doing folks? Top still there since yesterday on IWM. Would later today, tomorrow or Thursday see the dump? Volume has been low yesterday while price was up. I have not checked volume today. That says be very careful.
again pretty bad shorting signs. I shorted ahead of consumer confidence. what good that did me. lol. i think we might rally to the close. i opened a long position (now i'm in a vix straddle) If i profit on the long side i may put to short tomorrow. we'll see. good luck dennis
Dennis: I am intrigued by the way you trade the market. I understand that you trade options on the VIX. Could you expand a little bit on how you do this? Also should you not be short the vol as the market seems to be stabilizing? I also understand that VIX options are on the futures. I hope you made some money today, although the rise seemed to be so slow, small, and the dow even finished in red. A gap (up or down) should start a down leg from here, but the market really showed "strength" by holding to price gains (but not in volume). That is why I am worried both on the short and the long side. Probably selling strangles is something that one should do in this market environment. I am short calls on IWM (so making some little money from time erosion which compensated for the small rise in IWM). I ahve made some good money on them in the down move earlier in the morning, but I did not close them as I thought that maybe the down move had started particularly when IWM broke the 69.50 level, but I knew that 69.25 was significant as buyers following the average price of 720 minutes might be hiding there. We will see what happens tomorrow and Thursday. Usually (not always) Wednesdays and/or Thursdays the market retreats.
If you think we are at a top and shorting tops is part of your plan than just short it. Dont be asking everyone else for validation of your idea, thats the surest ticket to continued losses, both of capital and dignity.
What is wrong with you? You cannot read the chart of yesterday? What I shorted yesterday was the top (at 70.12 and 70.29). I took half of position for profit when IWM went lower. I made money, and I am still waiting for more. I have my stop set at no loss overall. Learn how to literally read the past chart before "reading" the future.
Nothing at all wrong with me except that I had gotten rather attatched to the idea of having boobs before they took em from me. But, on a serious note, I gave you a serious reply. If you think thats the top, great take the trade. Dont be asking for opinions on it, it will only fuck you up in the long run. You need to have your own confidence in the trade to take it and not rely on what others say. Your best trades are going to come when everyone is telling you that your the biggest jackass alive for taking it..what do you do then?
Considering the successful traders' "every main for himself" ways, no way we see 12,800.. most of us will be ahead of that..
After I posted I realized it must have been confusing to understand. When I meant I was going short, i meant short the market (which to me is long vix calls) Yesterday i bought 25c at around 1:30 and closed them out for a modest profit around 2:30. Today I opened a 27.5calls trade after the terrible consumer number (and housing number earlier). The market did go down a bit but it never reflected in the vix options pricing. I knew if we weren't going down after that i was in trouble so I bought 25puts to effectively put me in a strangle. I usually would never do this but since vix is pretty much dead center of it's range lately i figure i should be able to cover both positions by april expiration. The market then remained dead all afternoon so i have both positions open still. I'm not going for huge gains, just .10 to .20 cents which is well below daily fluctuation for ATM vix options. The unusually flat afternoon put me out of business so we'll see what the rest of the week brings. Dennis